


In Your Name

by TheTimeMachineJellyfish



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: 6000 Years of Pining (Good Omens), 6000 Years of Slow Burn (Good Omens), Aggor Wood is Important, Alternate Universe - Fae, Banshees, Being stuck in an iron prison is 1000x worse when you are fae, Crowley Saves Aziraphale (Good Omens), Don't copy to another site, Favors and thank yous are Significant to the fae, First Meetings, Flowers spontaneously crop up when the unrequited love is really strong, Good Omens Holiday Swap 2019, Light Angst And Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Midsummer Night's Dream - Based on Real Events!, Missing Scene: 3700 B.C., Missing Scene: Babylon, Missing Scene: The First War, Names Are Important to Fae, POV Aziraphale (Good Omens), POV Crowley (Good Omens), Pining, Protective Crowley (Good Omens), Rated T for descriptions of battlefields and blood, Scene: Paris 1793 (Good Omens), Selkies, Snake Crowley (Good Omens), South Downs Cottage (Good Omens), The 537 Meeting was about Morgana Le Fay, War is a Kelpie, Yuletide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-02
Updated: 2020-01-27
Packaged: 2021-02-27 06:27:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 13,026
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22082590
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheTimeMachineJellyfish/pseuds/TheTimeMachineJellyfish
Summary: For the fae, the exchange of a name is no small thing.Fae AU: Unseelie!Crowley and Seelie!Aziraphale.
Relationships: Aziraphale & Crowley (Good Omens), Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 40
Kudos: 223
Collections: Good Omens Holiday Swap 2019





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [silvercolour](https://archiveofourown.org/users/silvercolour/gifts).



> This is a piece that I wrote for the Good Omens Holiday Swap! 
> 
> Silvercolour gave me so many wonderful ideas and I tried to integrate as many as I could into this project; by far the most influential of silvercolour's suggestions was the idea of a fae AU and I hope they (and you!) enjoy it. Happy new year!
> 
> This is a project I think I'd like to continue in the future, but I needed a good stopping place for the purposes of the exchange. Thank you for reading!

**The First War**

Gabriel’s trumpet pierced the fog of battle.

The Unseelie retreated from the field in wisps of smoke, oily shimmers, snarls and flame. The Queen called her children home and Aziraphale sheathed his sword, digging his fingers into the strap under his chin. He dragged off his white helmet, dropping it onto the ground. He made the mistake of drawing a breath, inhaling the heavy stench of blood, flesh and sulfur. He pressed the back of a gloved hand to his lips, bracing himself against a devastating reflex to gag. He couldn’t allow himself to dwell on the smell of death magic, metallic and spoiled, seeping into the soles of his boots, into his nose and mouth.

The Unseelie King and his followers had been cast out of the city on the first day, but he was a proud creature and refused to yield. Aziraphale was given the dubious honor of commanding a platoon of fifty Seelie Fae into battle, his brother Gabriel leading their golden army to victory against the Unseelie.

_Gather the wounded. Leave the dead._

Aziraphale did not obey. He could not bear to avert his eyes from the dead without acknowledging them. Slain on the battlefield, the distinction between Seelie and Unseelie vanished. They were all _Daoine Sidhe_ and Aziraphale’s heart was heavy with loss. Grief hung around his neck and hunched his shoulders, maligning his good posture with a pressing weight on his back, sinking through his armor and into his chest. His gaze swept along the ground and widened in sudden recognition. A pained cry snared in his throat, Aziraphale gasped the selkie’s name and knelt on the ground next to her.

“Arariel,” he breathed her name, face crumpling into grief. She was one of _his_ , assigned to his platoon and under his care. He did not even see her fall. Dark hair knotted and caked in filth clumped against slick gray shoulders, and in her final moments she had half-regained her natural corporation, caught between human and seal. A poison-tipped lance tore through her throat and chest, pinning her to the ground as she died. Congealed blood seeped through his trousers, cold and wet.

Aziraphale dislodged the lance from her body with a choked-off sound, splintering it in his clenched fist. Leaving it in the grass, he gathered up the selkie in his arms and carried her off the field. Past the Sigillaria trees – still and silent in the wake of such a wretched battle - was a river. Glittering and clear, it flowed down from the mountains and emptied into the sea. Aziraphale knew that Arariel would not wish to be buried in the earth, forever separated from the deep waters she had come from.

“I know that I have failed you,” he whispered, “There is no recompense for what has been taken from you…” Aziraphale unbuckled his baldric and removed what was left of his armor, sitting barefoot on the muddied bank in his white shift. Silky water surged over his feet and he smiled sadly in greeting. 

“Your sister has been slain in battle,” he murmured to the bubbling water running over stone, “I trust you will guide her home.” He removed the plates of her armor, badly damaged, and rinsed the blood and dirt from her hair, from beneath her fingernails, from the soles of her feet, as best he could. It was a slow and painstaking process, each gesture weighted with remorse. She was his responsibility. Had he been a better commander, he could have prevented this. Guiding her body into the river, he curled his fingers into the wet silk of her tunic as the waters surged, recognizing her, longing to reclaim her.

He uttered a soft invocation, and he prayed to release Arariel from the pain she had suffered and the horrors she had witnessed, that the current be swift and true. Aziraphale let her go with trembling fingers, and the river cradled her body as it carried her away. He watched Arariel vanish around the bend and turned his weary gaze away, tears trickling warm and silver-white down his cheeks. He permitted himself a moment to grieve and then, nudged by the current against his legs, Aziraphale waded over to the bank and pulled himself out of the water. Struggling against waterlogged tailfeathers and clothes, once Aziraphale dragged himself into the grass he swept his fingers along the wingtips and fabric to dry them, drawing out the moisture as a glittering cloud of mist which returned to the river.

“Planning to do that for the others?”

Aziraphale twisted around, startled, and looked up. Standing on the bank next to him was an Unseelie soldier. Long, red curls matted with sweat and blood clung to his dark armored shoulders. His face was marked by an intricate pattern of scales along the sharp lines of his cheekbones and jaw.

“Sorry?”

The Unseelie jerked his head towards the riverbend, baring one pointed ear. “You buried the selkie,” he said, shifting more heavily onto his left leg before easing himself down onto the ground. He started to remove his armor as he spoke, “I asked if you were planning to do that for the others.”

“Ah.” His stomach swam with guilt. “No. It isn’t… permitted.”

The Unseelie arched a brow, biting the tip of his middle fingers to pull off his gauntlet, “Breaking the rules?” The words were muffled around the leather between his teeth.

“I…” He flushed and looked away. “I don’t know.”

The Unseelie hummed in response. “She must be important to you.”

Aziraphale was unsure how to define their relationship. He would not say they were friends, and certainly not blood-related but this did not make her death any less devastating. “I haven’t- _hadn’t_ known her long,” he could not privilege one loss- not in the wake of such a battle, but Arariel had trusted him with her true name, trusted him as her commander, “It is my fault she is dead.”

The Unseelie tilted his head. “Did you kill her?”

His head jerked up and he glared at the yellow-eyed fae. “Of course not!”

“S’not your fault then.”

“You don’t understand.”

The Unseelie shrugged. “I’ll give you some unsolicited advice.”

“I didn’t ask for advice.”

“I said, _unsolicited_ ,” he drawled, “There are hundreds of dead fae on that field. If you start taking the blame for the ones you didn’t drive your sword through, you’ll make yourself sick.”

Aziraphale swallowed. “Is that supposed to make me feel better?”

“Not really.” The Unseelie wasn’t looking at him now. He was hiking up his robe to examine three deep lacerations curled around his calf. Aziraphale gasped at the sickly discoloration. A snap drew his gaze to a flicker of white flame, manifested in the palm. Fire danced between his long fingers. 

“What are you doing?”

“Got to purify the wound,” he replied, gaze flicking to Aziraphale’s horrified face, “Better avert your eyes, golden one.”

Aziraphale pursed his lips and leaned over, stretching out his own hand over the worst of the lashing. The Unseelie’s own arm hovered in mid-air, flames casting the exposed muscle and bone in orange. The scale patterned danced beneath the torn flesh, rippling under the skin. Aziraphale blinked away the fascination. He glanced up at yellow eyes with a silent inquiry, and the Unseelie raised a brow.

Aziraphale swallowed, taking it to be consent for his own endeavor to heal the wound. Light brightened white and warm beneath Aziraphale’s hand. Magic crept between layers of exposed skin with a flare of power and the flesh knitted itself back together. The Unseelie soldier’s spine bowed and his chin dropped, the tremor easing out of his body in relief. He extinguished the fire in his hand and relaxed.

When it was finished, Aziraphale drew back and clasped his hands in his lap. He looked out over the river in an effort to mask his grimace. He was troubled over having defied his brother twice in an hour; it was not expressly forbidden by the Queen to heal the adversary, but Gabriel would disapprove. Whose blood was it that stained his black armor? How many of their own forces were wounded, suffering now within the walls of the city? He should have withheld his magic from this creature.

“Didn’t even leave a scar.” The Unseelie sounded surprised.

The sky grew dark and heavy as silence stretched between them. Aziraphale shifted uneasily, casting an anxious look to the clouds. Gabriel would say stupidity in the guise of benevolence – showing compassion to the enemy – was not commendable. The Unseelie could not be trusted.

“My condolences, by the way,” he spoke suddenly, “For the selkie.”

Aziraphale blinked in surprise. The sentiment seemed genuine, in so much as he could tell. It occurred to the Seelie prince that he had never met anyone with eyes like those. “That’s nice of you to say.”

The Unseelie grimaced. “I’m not nice.”

“No, I suppose you aren’t,” Aziraphale’s conflicted gaze slid to the bloodied plates of armor on the ground by his feet. A caterwaul pierced the still air between them, the shrill wailing of the banshees growing louder with each passing moment. Drawn to the scent of misery and decay, they descended on the battlefield to scream for the dead and to feed on the sorrow of the living. It was a terrible sound, lodging itself in Aziraphale’s chest and ringing in his ears until he could hear nothing else.

Then the Unseelie soldier sat up and wrapped a hand around the back of his neck, startling the Seelie prince. He pressed in close, his grip iron-tight on the seams of Aziraphale’s collar, and said into his ear, “You’d better go,” the words were nearly drowned out by the high-pitched keening on the edge of the forest, “Banshees are attracted to grief. You smell like a feast, golden one.”

Aziraphale nodded stiffly, not trusting himself to speak. The power of a banshee’s scream was overwhelming, amplifying the pain of those within earshot. “Please don’t call me that,” he managed to whisper in response, latching onto the most inconsequential words in the warning.

The Unseelie let go of him and sat back in the grass. “I don’t suppose you’ll offer me another name.” Aziraphale couldn’t hear the words but he read his lips. He gave the Unseelie an unhappy look and the other fae’s bemused expression relaxed into a smirk. “I’ll come up with something better. Next time.” Personally, Aziraphale did not think there would be a _next time_ , but the banshees’ cries were nearly on top of him now- close to the river. He stood, gathering his (and Arariel’s) armor, stretched out his wings and flew back to the city.

* * *

**4004 B.C.**

There were several _next times_ after the First War ended.

In the beginning, Adam and Eve resided in the veil between Earth and Faerie. This veil took the form of an enchanted garden, where the humans were sheltered from pain, sickness, old age and death by faerie magic. Aziraphale was stationed on the wall to protect them at the behest of the Seelie Queen. His adversary, a favorite of the Unseelie King, tempted the humans to eat a forbidden apple from the Tree of Knowledge. This allowed them to see Eden for what it truly was and for that, they were cast out. The garden was hidden, Aziraphale gave away his sword, and Crawly introduced himself.

“Crawly,” Aziraphale repeated it aloud and felt the weight of the word, the power behind it. The fae did not share names lightly, and to do so signaled a profound trust. Casting an uncertain look at the Unseelie next to him, Aziraphale wondered if Crawly understood what he had done. Surely, he did. The laws that governed earth were not so different from their own. The Seelie prince, conflicted over the significance of this gift ( _Crawly, Crawly, Crawly_ ), could not bring himself to reciprocate.

* * *

**3700 B.C.**

Three hundred years later, they met again.

Aziraphale accompanied a caravan of travelers making the journey from Thapsacus, on the border of Mesopotamia, to Damascus. They made camp outside of Hemesa on the bank of the Orontes River. The women began to prepare dinner, the men to tell stories of the region, and the children scampered off to play in the water. Aziraphale tended to the oxen, camels and donkeys, soothing their aches and whispering gratitude on behalf of those who relied on their strength to make such a voyage.

His ministrations were interrupted by a child’s cry. “Umma!” Aziraphale recognized the voice of seven-year-old Bereka who flung herself into the arms of her mother, Dinah, begging her to come to the river, “Jered found a horse in the water! He touched it and now it will not let him go!” Aziraphale dropped his brush on the ground, heart sinking in his chest, as the child worked herself into a state, screaming that her mother needed to _come now, hurry, now, Umma, please!_ The adults – women and men – surged around Bereka, and in the time it would take them to understand, the boy might well be drowned.

Aziraphale always believed children, although he did not necessarily consider himself adept at interacting with them. They were closer to the veil than adults, insightful and sensitive to magic. Aziraphale moved much faster than a human – when he felt inclined to do so – and arrived on the edge of the river. Its waters had turned brackish and thick with scarlet reeds, contaminated by a kelpie. She was a fearsome beast, standing in the middle of the river. A blood-red mane against a pale coat, black eyes and red lips, mouth frothing in anticipation of what she would soon devour.

The boy – Jered – was tangled in the kelpie’s mane, which had wrapped around his fingers and forearm with a prehensile strength, pinning him to the fae. He struggled, his mouth opened wide in a silent scream, and Aziraphale realized the kelpie was exerting her own power to mute the sound of the thrashing, terrified child. The modus operandi of a kelpie was to lure their prey – in the form of a human or the form of a horse, depending on the hunt - drag them underwater, drown them and devour them. Sometimes the feeding was prolonged by terrorizing the victim as fear, too, provided sustenance.

Black eyes swiveled to meet his own and the kelpie’s lips dragged into a grin, flashing rows of sharp and putrid teeth – not rotting, but stained.

“Let the boy go.”

The kelpie laughed, or seemed to give an approximation of one, rough and high, each vocalized exhale sharp as a blade, “Come into the water, Seelie scum, and take him,” she purred in invitation.

Aziraphale exhaled and released his glamor, wings unfolding with a flash of white light. He may not have had his sword, but he was far from powerless. The kelpie snarled a spitting epithet and recoiled from the light, but instead of releasing the human she sank further into the water with a dead-eyed look, pulling Jered with her. The river engulfed the boy's shoulders. Aziraphale lurched forward to stop her and stepped into the marsh, feet sinking into the warm, wet muck. He realized his mistake one moment too late only to have _something_ yank him backwards. Aziraphale lost his balance, wings flexing in protest, and landed on the dirt in a most undignified sprawl.

“Carmine!”

To his surprise, Crawly stepped over him as if he wasn’t even there, not hurting him but ignoring him. Aziraphale’s bewildered expression – _where did he come from?_ – segued into wariness when he realized Crawly greeted the kelpie by name. She seemed displeased, but rose out of the water all the same, her horse’s head dissolving into that of a human woman. The rest of her body remained equine.

“Snake,” she replied darkly, but there was a thickness in her voice, like blood. It was warmer than the tone she had used with him – but well, Seelie scum and all. He wasn’t expecting much. “Is there a reason you’re interrupting my dinner?” She eyed Aziraphale with a toothy growl, “I had him.”

“You know how they feel about cannibalizing, Red,” Crawly replied, and with all the grace of a serpent he sank into a calculated recline along the river, spine flexing, and reached for a handful of dark reeds, twisting what Aziraphale could only assume were noxious and slimy stalks between his fingertips. Vaguely, he was aware that he should be more concerned about the kelpie insinuating she would eat him than the way that Crawly fiddled with grass, but evidently, he wasn’t the only one distracted.

“ _His_ kind don’t count,” she rasped in what Aziraphale suspected was a sultry voice, “What does it matter if Seelie blood spills on the ground or in my mouth? One… less…”

Crawly clicked his tongue against his teeth. “Still comes with paperwork. You don’t want that.”

The kelpie made a disgruntled sound. “Fine,” she conceded in a hiss, “Just the boy.”

Jered was still trapped in her mane, pale and shaking, brown eyes wide and fixated on Aziraphale. It was enough to drive the Seelie prince to his feet, “No!” Crawly shot him a look but it wasn’t one that Aziraphale could decipher, and frankly he didn’t care. That child had been through enough.

Aziraphale charged towards the water for the second time only to find himself blocked _again_ – this time by a sudden, roaring wall of fire that erupted in the grass and burst into the air, engulfing the Seelie fae in a ring of heat. Aziraphale turned around where he stood and tilted his head up. With a determined clench of the jaw, he braced his feet on the ground and pushed off with his wings pulled tight to his shoulders. The higher he flew, the higher the flames climbed, and Aziraphale could not see the boy through the wall of fire. There was no smoke, and even the heat was bearable if he did not touch it; just as he braced himself to fly _through_ the fire to get to Jered, it vanished. Aziraphale’s startled gaze took in the river – _where is Jered? where is the kelpie?_ – and an anguished sound escaped from his throat.

“Angel!”

Aziraphale blinked down at Crawly, who waved him over from the riverbank with the human boy under his other arm. He dropped down to the ground, folding his wings against his shoulders as he landed in front of Jered who seemed to be dripping wet and in shock, but otherwise unharmed.

“What happened?”

Crawly shrugged, letting go of the human boy as the sound of voices grew closer. “The kelpie and I had a private conversation about what I do to those who encroach on my territory,” he said casually, “Setting a Seelie prince on fire was an effective persuasion technique, so she gave up the meal.”

Aziraphale stated the obvious, “You didn’t set me on fire.”

“But she didn’t know that,” Crawly winked.

Jered’s parents called for him and Aziraphale bent down to look at the boy, speaking to him in his own tongue, to ease the trembling that had overtaken him. He promised Jered that he would forget about the horse in the river and wake up tomorrow having dreamed of whatever he liked best. Aziraphale made a mental note to do the same for Bereka before leaving the caravan. Altering the memories of humans was easier when he did not see them again, so this would be good-bye.

Later that evening, he found Crawly on the riverbank and, after a moment’s indecision, decided to sit down next to him. The waters had regained their clear color, all evidence of the kelpie vanished. The earth was such a beautiful, resilient place; sometimes he thought he preferred it to Faerie.

“You saved that boy today.”

“Ngh,” Crawly replied dismissively, “Killing kids… the bar’s set low but that’s what it is.”

Aziraphale tried not to smile. “I see.”

“That Carmine’s a real piece of work,” he went on, drawing his knees to his chest and bracing his elbows on them, “And you tried to go in the water after her _twice_. The water, angel. Where she _lives_.”

Aziraphale flushed. “I know…” It was not a fight he would have won.

“You are so stupid,” Crawly informed him, shaking his head, “You’re lucky I was in the area.”

“I suppose I was,” he replied, “Why _are_ you here?”

“Passing through on my way to Enoch,” he grinned at Aziraphale, who looked appropriately scandalized. The city, founded by the murderer Cain east of Eden, was rumored to be of ill-repute, overrun with humans who dabbled in dark magic and bargained with Unseelie fae. “You should come.”

“Why in the world would I do that?”

“To thwart my wiles?” Crawly suggested, “I _am_ a dark creature who feeds on human wickedness.”

“Of course.” Aziraphale found it difficult to reconcile this statement with what he had witnessed. The skepticism showed in his voice, softened by his gratitude towards the Unseelie.

“You could come to sightsee,” Crawly continued, “Or better yet, come as a favor. In exchange for me saving your life _and_ the boy’s. You took up my whole evening, angel. I had plans.”

Aziraphale suspected the Unseelie was teasing him. Still, there was some truth to it. “You did a very good thing, Crawly.” The other fae made a sound of dismay, ostensibly at Aziraphale’s use of the word ‘good’. “I won’t be joining you in Enoch.” He couldn’t possibly go to that city, and certainly not with Crawly. He had pretended to set Aziraphale on fire to have a conversation with his own people; of course, he would suffer consequences if they were seen together in public – he might be eaten!

Crawly’s smiling expression faded into something pleasant but unreadable, and Aziraphale did not know if he was disappointed or not when he shrugged off the abrupt rejoinder. “Your loss, angel.”

“Aziraphale.”

“What?”

“My name is…” his voice did not tremble, but he could not look at Crawly when he repeated, “Aziraphale.” For a moment, the only sound that carried were the insects humming. Then Aziraphale remembered to breathe and said, “Thank you for your… remarkably well-timed intervention.”

“Don’t thank me.” He did not seem inclined to dwell on what had transpired; instead, he invited Aziraphale for drinks. The evening passed companionably, and the following day Crawly left for Enoch.

The next time Aziraphale saw him, it was the morning before the deluge.

* * *

**1793 A.D.**

In the summer of 1793, Crowley sensed a bone-deep chill. It sank into his wrists and spread with prickling intensity. Flexing his fingers, he leaned against the wall of his room. _Aziraphale_. Utilizing the most colorful threats and promises, wringing every favor he was owed in Paris, he tracked the rumors of a soon-to-be-beheaded English aristocrat to a prison next to the Place du Trône-Renversé, with great acoustics for executions. The stone was reinforced with iron which set his teeth on edge, and he found Aziraphale in a dimly lit corridor, sitting on a stool in a lace collar, gold brocade and satin slippers, chained to a wall.

The reason he couldn’t free himself was the same reason it took Crowley nearly a day to find him: cold iron repelled the fae, dampened their powers, and could discorporate them if wielded effectively. Crowley grimaced from the other side of the prison door, the interlocking bars preventing him from snapping himself in and out of the cell.

“Jean-Claude,” Crowley greeted the executioner, interrupting another spiel about the beauty of chopping people’s heads off. Aziraphale gasped his name – the breathy relief in his voice was pleasurable, chasing away the iron-induced migraine setting in - but did not interrupt. “Venez ici. J’ai un message de Pierre.” Coaxing the executioner over with a jovial exchange and a crook of finger, Crowley ground his hands together as Jean-Claude opened the door to welcome him into the cell and blew a cloud of black dust into the human’s face. Paralyzed where he stood, the human did nothing as Crowley snatched the ring of keys from his hands, hissing as he tossed them from palm to palm.

Swearing to himself, he crouched down next to the Seelie prince and went through three different keys before he found the right one, unfastening the shackles from Aziraphale’s wrists and letting them drop on the floor between them. He tossed the keys to the side. If they’d had the time, Crowley would have enjoyed torturing the executioner, but his palms were blistered and Aziraphale's wrists and hands were rubbed raw and bloody by the iron. He looked- great, but tired and miserable. The two fae arranged to switch Aziraphale’s clothes with those of Jean-Claude, leaving the human in the cell to die.

Outside of the prison, where they could both breathe easier, Aziraphale adjusted his clothing to his tastes (insomuch as the revolutionary colors could _be_ to his taste), including a soft red beret. Crowley enjoyed the side glances given to him under the guise of disapproving of his fitted red jacket and tight black trousers. He had never shared Aziraphale’s proclivity for sumptuous spaces, and he regretted bringing the Seelie prince back to his room: as stark and sparsely decorated as it was.

“Sit on the bed,” Crowley directed his friend, retrieving a pitcher of water, a salve, and bandages to treat his wrists. An iron-induced wound for the fae healed almost as slowly as a human’s. His damn fingers shook as he gripped the pitcher in both hands, angering the blisters.

Aziraphale noticed. “We should tend to yours first.”

“No.”

“Crowley…” Aziraphale chastised him gently and he swallowed whatever it was he meant to say. The Seelie prince touched him, his wrists, slipped the pads of his thumbs along his palms – somehow managing not to brush against the burns. It was a strange soft pleasure to offset the pain.

Crowley curled his fingers around Aziraphale’s, biting back a wince. “Yours are worse.”

“We’ve both had worse, my dear.”

“Aziraphale,” Crowley breathed the name in a careful exhale. He didn’t use it often; it was, after all, something the Seelie prince had given him out of a sense of obligation, because Crowley had manipulated him into providing some form of recompense for rescuing one human child from a kelpie. Aziraphale had been so discomfited by the prospect of accompanying the Unseelie to Enoch that he had given his name instead. The memory of that night haunted him over three thousand years later; it had, in his mind, tainted their arrangement. So he resolved not to use Aziraphale’s name – sometimes he uttered it at moments when his self-control was particularly abysmal, and he did pathetically love the way it sounded, tasted, felt to say. But it had not been given willingly. Cursing at himself for the slip, he moved on, “Please shut up.”

Crowley thanked every deity that he didn’t believe in when his friend consented with a nod, but this did not stop Aziraphale from smiling at him in a way that made him want to simultaneously spread his wings and sink into the earth’s pit. As Crowley tended to his wrists, Aziraphale leaned his forward and gently touched his forehead to Crowley’s own and whispered his name. He knew better than to say ‘thank you’.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> On why faeries - having been exiled from their respective Courts for meddling - prefer the South Downs to London.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The feedback I received from this - my first ever gift exchange! - was so encouraging so I must extend my ETERNAL gratitude 1) to my lovely giftee silvercolour who gave me this idea that I can't shake and 2) to everyone else who read the first installment. I'm so grateful and appreciative :D I think it will be, in total, three parts. I'm wrapping up the third part and that should (hopefully) be published in the next week or so.

**4004 B.C.**

Watching Adam and Eve venture into the desert, Crawly wondered if he had done the wrong (right?) thing. He was ordered to _get over there and cause some trouble._ One tentative attempt at conversation later and Crawly discovered that the Seelie was worried about what his queen would say about giving away his magical sword to humans who had lost her favor. Crawly made a clumsy attempt at reassuring the Seelie prince and was rewarded with a smile. Then it began to rain and to his surprise, the other fae extended his impressive white wing to shelter Crawly from the storm. It did not rain in Faerie and so this was the first storm he had ever witnessed. Crawly decided he didn’t care for it – getting wet – as he shuffled closer to the Seelie prince, but he did like the thunder. The first stone-shuddering roll made the fae next to him twitch, pull his wings tighter together, and to Crawly it might have been the closest thing to an embrace he had felt since before the war.

“Why did you tempt Eve to eat the apple?” the Seelie fae inquired finally, as the clouds began to disperse. “Is it in your nature?”

Crawly raised a brow. “My nature?”

“To be… bad.”

Crawly scoffed. “If not walking lock-step with the queen makes me bad then I guess I am.”

“Exactly,” the Seelie prince answered earnestly, seemingly incapable of reading Crawly’s sarcasm – the first recorded use of this particular tonal shift, and who knew humans would take to it with such gusto? “So…?”

“So, I thought your lot didn’t like asking questions.” Crawly replied, “You told me I shouldn’t speculate.”

“About the queen,” the other fae corrected him, growing flustered, “I think I can question you.”

“Do you?” The challenge hung in the air between them long enough for the Seelie prince to stammer wordlessly, before Crawly relaxed with a smile, “To answer your question – because I am the sort of creature who does not punish people for asking questions-”

“ _Crawly._ ”

Admonition or not, he quite liked the way the Seelie prince said his name. “ _As I was saying_ ,” he went on, “No, I didn’t do it because I am bad. I was told to do… _something_ but they give me creative license,” there was no wrong time to boast, “You know I don’t see the point in that tree. And I don’t think humans belong behind walls,” The queen was keeping them as pets in a cage – and all he did was show them that it was a cage. He did them a favor, really. If it was him, he would want to _know_. “They should be free to… roam the world.”

“So that the Unseelie can hurt them?”

“ _I_ don’t want to hurt them,” he couldn’t speak for the others – and he wouldn’t want to. Some of them would want to eat the humans, or harm them in other ways out of spite or desire or need, but not all Unseelie were the same.

“But they are going to suffer.”

Crawly made a sound of acknowledgment, and it was tinged in regret. He stood by what he’d done. “At least they’ll have a choice.” 

* * *

**1793**

The Arrangement.

In 537, Crowley suggested they work together. Morgana Le Fay had made a name for herself on earth. The shapeshifting raven had managed to piss off the Seelie Queen by declaring herself a goddess, and the Unseelie King was unimpressed with her many failed attempts to usurp King Arthur. Aziraphale had rejected the arrangement and left Crowley standing in the middle of a foggy glen.

In 1100, Crowley brought it up again and Aziraphale grudgingly agreed, citing the danger of the Crusades and the unpredictable nature of fanatical humans with iron blades. There was safety in numbers (even if that number was two), considering how utterly unconcerned management seemed to be about the state of the earth.

In 1601, Crowley trapped the hobgoblin Puck in a crossroads under the Globe Theatre. Under the guise of Robin Goodfellow, he had been cavorting with theater types in London and, one evening in a drunken stupor, babbled his true identity to a playwright who set about _writing it all down._ Crowley took care of sending Puck back to the Unseelie Court and erased the memories of the hobgoblin’s human companions. Aziraphale had a soft spot for artists and an annoyingly persistent fondness for Shakespeare; so instead of destroying the play, Crowley convinced Will that he had come up with the idea of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” all on his own. Did wonders for the human’s ego, that. Feigning annoyance, Crowley would never admit that it was his favorite.

“Crowley?”

Sitting on the floor at the foot of the bed, Crowley opened his eyes. “I told you to rest.”

Aziraphale shifted on the mattress, “I’ve been thinking…” Crowley leaned his head back against the wooden post, “Would you come here for a moment? There’s no need for you to be on the ground.”

Crowley dragged himself to his feet and sat on the edge of the bed facing Aziraphale, bandaged hands in his lap. “What?” Aziraphale gave him an expectant look and waited for Crowley to remove his tinted glasses.

“I am grateful that you rescued me,” he spoke around the words ‘thank you’ but Crowley made a face. Aziraphale had allowed himself to be captured rather than risk the Golden Court’s censure over use of his powers in front of humans. “How did you find me?”

“How do you think?” All Crowley needed to do was utter Aziraphale’s name and he would know where he was. This was one of the dangers of exchanging true names among the fae; such a gift could not be rescinded, and no amount of warding would protect you from those who _knew._ Crowley had felt something else- an echo of Aziraphale’s pain when the humans clapped him in irons. He didn’t mention it. 

“I would have thought the iron would… complicate matters.”

“You were a hair away from the guillotine by the time I got there. That didn’t feel complicated to you?” Aziraphale decided not to press the topic, and Crowley took the opportunity to distract him, getting off the bed, “You’re up now. Let's do crepes _. Allons-y.”_

* * *

**2020**

Gabriel had once told Aziraphale that nothing was _settled_ from the First War. Victory for the Golden Court would only be assured through battle. Aziraphale thought, _We slaughtered each other for three days. Was that not enough to put you off war forever?_ He was too much of a coward to confront his brother. He did not see then how shameful it was: six thousand years, and nothing to show for it but vengeance. There were so many beautiful words to read, songs to listen to, earthly pleasures to indulge in. There was so much to fight for.

In 2008, the Unseelie King ordered Crowley to replace the Dowlings’ infant with a changeling: his own child. Through an impressive amount of fumbling over the course of eleven years, Crowley and Aziraphale did manage to divert The Second War with the child’s help. The veil between the two realms remained intact, and a clever spell protected them from the initial act of retribution, swapping iron blades for nickel. The blades were indistinguishable and as a result of the trick, their respective sides believed them to have developed a humans' immunity.

They were cast out with little ceremony. Aziraphale had never seen his brother so afraid, and it ached to know that fear was all that was left between them now. He understood this was more than freedom. Neither he nor Crowley could return to Faerie.

In the year since these events transpired, his relationship with Crowley had changed very little. They did what they’d always done: went to shows, met for dinner, and drank copious amounts of alcohol in the comfort of his shop’s back room. The only difference was that such meetings were not tinged with the same paralyzing anxiety Aziraphale had carried since the first time they’d spoken on the edge of a battlefield.

It was a nice day. The sky was a perfect blue, wisps of white cloud floating across a still, shining sky. The sun was warm on his face and Aziraphale tipped his head back. He remembered London's river before the Romans had ever built their first settlement on the land. The summit of Primrose Hill was still lovely, even with the unfortunate view of the cityscape beyond the trees.

He and Crowley had claimed the best spot and discouraged any humans from sitting too close. He spread their blanket out onto the grass. Crowley opened a bottle of champagne and poured two glasses, handing one to him. Aziraphale smiled in response. “Shall we toast?”

“To what?”

Aziraphale looked down at the glass in his lap, considering, “Our first year in exile?”

Crowley’s lounging posture did not change, his long legs sprawled out on the blanket before them, but tension rippled through the other fae. Aziraphale instantly regretted being the cause of it – and his friend’s careful response, “Yeah, alright.”

A clink of glasses followed and Aziraphale raised the flute to his lips, sipping at the 1841 Veuve Clicquot. He had initially bought it for them to share but he and Crowley had a falling out that century over quicksilver.

“So, exile,” Crowley prompted, mouth hovering over the delicate rim of the glass. “That’s what this is?”

Aziraphale’s brow furrowed. “Isn’t it?”

“Didn’t think retirement was such a hardship,” the Unseelie shrugged, “Don’t tell me you miss following _Gabe’s_ orders.” He cracked a smile, but it wasn’t one of his proper smiles – those were so few and far between – it was more of a smirk, and it quivered slightly.

“Certainly not,” Aziraphale murmured, “He attempted to kill me.” It was the sort of thing one tended to take personally – not that they had ever been particularly close, but Aziraphale had underestimated Gabriel. A thwarted war brought out the ugly side in his family and reminded him that the Seelie Court had changed in six thousand years. “But we _are_ in exile, Crowley. We’ve been stripped of our titles-”

“-can I get a wahoo?”

Aziraphale ignored him. “-and we’ve been expelled from the Courts. If we cross into Faerie, they’ll try to kill us again.” Iron was ineffective, or so they thought but there were other ways to harm the fae. Torture them. Dismember them. Feed them to kelpies… 

“You want to go back.” Crowley wasn’t smirking now. 

“No,” he protested, “It isn’t… as easy as all that.” Aziraphale could count on one hand the number of times he’d been to Court since his first assignment on Earth – and his absence was due only in part to Gabriel’s propensity for sharp lines and a clean aesthetic that paired poorly with Aziraphale’s sensibilities. It had been millennia since the queen made a showing, leaving the management of such things to Aziraphale’s siblings. Over time, the Golden City had changed to suit its steward, growing cold and unyielding.

“I wouldn’t go back to the way things are now,” Aziraphale said, “But sometimes I miss what Faerie used to be… in the beginning. Do you remember?” He remembered warmth and comfort and a profound sense of _home_.

“Yes.”

Aziraphale smiled sadly. “I suppose I was hoping She would intervene…” and he wondered – in his heart – if the Queen regretted the orders She had once given, if the memory of the war haunted Her too, “I thought, if She would only manifest before us, She could put an end to it.” Her silence, her distance, felt more insurmountable now than ever before. Perhaps it was not Faerie he missed, but _Her_.

Crowley drained the rest of his glass. “Doesn’t sound like Her.”

Aziraphale glanced to his friend, who was reclining on his elbows, chin tipped up to the sun like a serpent under a heat lamp. “You never expected Her to save us, did you?”

“Nope.”

Aziraphale did. He realized he had spoiled their otherwise lovely afternoon, that nothing put Crowley in a fouler mood than mentioning the Seelie Queen. He should never have agreed to this picnic if he was intending to be so… melancholic. “Forgive me, dear fellow.”

Crowley scrubbed a hand over his face, muttering something that sounded suspiciously like _for fuck’s sake_ under his breath. He turned to face the Seelie fae properly, disappearing his sunglasses with a wave of his hand. “Angel.”

Aziraphale blinked at him. “Yes?”

“Let’s go.”

“But the picnic-”

“It’ll be here when we get back.” Crowley held out a hand for him and this time, Aziraphale didn’t hesitate to accept it. With a snap of his fingers, the Unseelie fae vanished them both from the top of the hill. The two reappeared on a hilltop, peering down at verdant, rolling green valleys and woods, glittering mist clinging to the tops of the trees, not a single road or skyscraper in sight.

“Not bad, eh?”

“Oh Crowley,” this was such a superior view to London, “It’s _beautiful_.” Far from the stench of car exhaust and the incessant clatter of the city, Aziraphale could hear the songbirds. He could watch the air sweep through a cluster of pyramid orchids and smell cloves in the air. 

“Let’s take a tour, shall we?” Crowley offered his arm and Aziraphale rested his hand on the inside of his friend’s bicep, letting the Unseelie fae lead them on a winding path along the hilltop to the misty valley below. “We’re in West Sussex, a place called Harting Down.”

Aziraphale so rarely left London except on orders or to pursue a particularly rare volume for his shop, and he wasn’t sure he had ever seen this place. Certainly, he had heard wonderful things about the South Downs but he could not have imagined this. “How did you find it?” Crowley seemed even less inclined than Aziraphale to go gallivanting off to the countryside; he was a consummate urbanite.

Well, a consummate urbanite who was currently wiggling his fingers at a blue carpenter bee buzzing along next to him. Aziraphale watched with unrestrained fondness as the bee settled delicately on the back of Crowley’s hand, perched on the knuckle of his ring finger. “I bought a cottage down here,” his friend replied without looking up, keeping his eye on the bee and making an effort not to jostle it.

Aziraphale raised his eyebrows. “A cottage?”

“Mmm.”

“When did you do that?”

“About a year ago. That’s what _I_ was planning to toast.” Ah. Aziraphale winced and looked away, and so he failed to catch the flash of regret in Crowley’s face. He did, however, feel the gentle squeeze of a hand. “I didn’t mean anything by it, angel.”

“No, no, you’re quite right.” Today should have been a day of celebration. “I’ve been ridiculous.”

“I didn’t say that.”

 _You didn’t need to_ , Aziraphale thought, managing a small smile instead. Crowley stopped walking and muttered at the bee to get lost – _gently_ – and unraveled his arm from Aziraphale’s. It left the Seelie fae feeling quite unbalanced, standing on this uneven ground.

“You have a right to grieve, angel.” Of all the things he thought Crowley might say, this would never have crossed his mind. Aziraphale’s brow furrowed, and Crowley went on, “I came to terms with exile a long time ago – and there’s no love lost with the king,” he offered a wry, crooked grin. He was a fearsome creature, the Unseelie King, Aziraphale had never met him in person until that day in Tadfield.

In all the time they had known each other, Crowley had never talked about his Fall from the Golden Court and even now, he gestured to it without admitting in so many words that of course, _of course_ it had hurt. He said he was unforgivable, irredeemable, _Unseelie, Unseelie, Unseelie._ Aziraphale had failed to see that for the armor it was.

“Would you mind if I…?” He stepped closer to Crowley in a tentative gesture, waiting until his friend gave a jerky nod, eyes averted. Aziraphale drew the other fae into a hug. He pressed his forehead to Crowley’s chest, fingers twisting his friend’s black denim jacket. He felt long fingers press into his hair, and an arm around his shoulders, and a familiar tightness seized his throat. Minutes passed between them in silence and Aziraphale drew a slow breath, steadied by the warm pressure of Crowley’s palm rubbing slow circles against his back.

He loosened his grip on Crowley’s jacket and let go, drawing back. With scant few inches between them, Aziraphale smiled at his friend who – in a rare, unguarded moment – smiled back at him. “Thank you, Crowley.”

The smile faded. “Angel…”

“Aziraphale,” he murmured in response, surrendering to the long-standing impulse to brush his fingertips along Crowley’s jaw. As if in answer to the unspoken request, the scaled markings shimmered into view, and Aziraphale was pleased. It was nice to be in a place where they could look like themselves. 

“Not sure you should give me that.”

“My name?” Aziraphale was surprised, “I gave that to you years ago.” Crowley rarely used it and in their centuries together, _angel_ had come to be imbued with a sort of unspoken power and affection, “Mesopotamia, wasn’t it?”

Crowley’s voice overlapped with his own, “Yes.”

The circumstances of that night came to Aziraphale slowly, a tide of images and words that made him sigh. “You saved that boy’s life.”

“Just showing off."

“What was his name again?”

Crowley looked as if he’d been caught, but he didn’t seem to mind. “Jered.”

Aziraphale smiled brightly. “Now that _is_ showing off, considering you only met him once.” Between them, they had encountered billions upon billions of humans and even Aziraphale did not remember all of their names – although _Jered_ was not one he was likely to forget. “You were never like the others,” on the spectrum of Unseelie Fae, there was the kelpie and then there was Crowley, “I trusted you.”

“ _Really?_ ”

Aziraphale blushed. “Well, I-I trusted you not to abuse my name. I… did occasionally misunderstand other circumstances.”

“You accused me of starting the Reign of Terror-”

“I _asked_ if you were involved,” Aziraphale marshalled a weak defense, when in truth he knew better than to accuse his friend of something so terrible. “I _am_ sorry about the Nazis.” He should not have presumed that simply because they knew him by _a_ name, Crowley had anything to do with it. His friend was no more a warmonger than Aziraphale himself; neither of them had the heart for destruction. 

Crowley raised an eyebrow. “Yeah, that one kinda hurt my feelings.”

Aziraphale glanced away, feeling appropriately chastised for the fact. So often he would run into Crowley in the middle of an utter catastrophe and presume – on the basis of nothing whatsoever – that the chaos somehow originated from his influence. And he _was_ a chaotic creature but never malevolent, despite his declarations to the contrary, and he deserved much better than Aziraphale ever gave him credit for.

Fingers tucked under his chin and tipped it. Crowley’s eyes had softened again and so did his voice. “I’m joking, angel- _Aziraphale_ ,” he corrected himself, the sound of the name sparking something warm and lovely in his chest, “It’s all trolls under the bridge.”

“Water, dear,” Aziraphale murmured distractedly. _Water under the bridge_.

“You and I both know the only reason they say ‘water’ is because they can’t see the trolls.”

Crowley sounded so disgusted with humans’ utter lack of Sight that it made Aziraphale laugh. “Yes, of course.”

“Anyway,” he went on, intent on reassurances, “I don’t blame you for thinking that way. Unseelie, remember?” 

A thought occurred to Aziraphale. “Not anymore," he said.

“Hm?”

“You’re not Unseelie anymore, you’re fae without an affiliation…” _as am I._

Crowley seemed to be considering this before he shook his head. “I have an affiliation, angel.”

 _Ours. Our side._ In retrospect, he could see neither of them fit into the roles they were assigned. They belonged on Earth. It was what they had chosen – each other and this realm. "Ours,” Aziraphale repeated softly, offering a reassurance of his own. No, he did not regret the choices he had made.

Crowley smiled. “I want to show you the cottage.”

Aziraphale agreed. Wildflowers – purple lilac and yellow primrose – had sprouted around them, forming a perfect circle. Crowley stepped over the flowers without damaging them and offered a hand to Aziraphale, who took it with a grateful smile. Walking into the woods at the edge of the valley, Aziraphale cast one last look over his shoulder at the faerie ring they left behind. There were butterflies.

A few minutes of companionable silence passed beneath the beech trees, before it occurred to him what purchasing a cottage in West Sussex must have meant for Crowley. Aziraphale had never seen his flat in the city, “Are you planning to leave London?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh.” Aziraphale bit his lip in regret for his uneven tone of voice. This wasn’t far from London at all, and there was no reason to think Crowley’s relocation would infringe on their evening plans. “That’s wonderful,” he tacked on earnestly, “I’m very happy for you, my dear.”

He could feel Crowley’s gaze on him but Aziraphale was resolutely facing forward – until, “You could come with me.”

Aziraphale looked at him. “What?” His voice remained calm, but his heart had never thumped so loud.

“If you want,” Crowley amended quickly, and it was his turn to glance away with a scrunch of his nose, “I know you’ve got your shop, but if you ever decide to retire from pretending to sell books then… nyuh, it’ll be here.”

“Crowley…”

“And I’m not saying it’d fix everything, but it’d help you,” Crowley sounded as if he’d been practicing this talk, or something like it, because he seemed quite intent on finishing, “It was different when we had a ley line to Head Office, but after we got cut off…” he made a face, scuffed the heel of his boot over a toppled log, “You know how they started vomiting cast-iron architecture all over London in the 19th century?” Aziraphale grimaced at the tasteless word choice but nodded. It was a blessing when the humans switched over to steel. “I can still feel it, suffocating the hell out of me wherever I go in that bloody city. It’s enough to drain any of us and I want… to stand in the grass again. I want a proper garden. _Trees_ – trees!” Crowley gesticulated wildly with his free hand, “And not those sad fuckers they plant in the middle of the street.”

Aziraphale covered his friend's right hand with his own, squeezing gently. Crowley had a vendetta against those strategically placed strips of green grass in otherwise concrete spaces where a tree was not given adequate room to grow. He took great delight in encouraging (berating) them to split sidewalks and inconvenience joggers with uneven pavement.

“Crowley, I thought it was only me,” Aziraphale blurted out with a bubble of laughter, “You know how I detest it.” He loved his bookshop, his restaurants, his theater, his cafes – but he did not love the city. Over the past year, his growing dissatisfaction with the life he’d settled into clung to him like a cloak of weariness. He felt it so keenly when he was alone. And it had not occurred him that this discomfort might be related to something much more intrinsic than his discerning (“old-fashioned”) tastes. He was unhappy because he was iron-sick. 

“So, you’ll think about it?” Crowley suggested, nudging his shoulder as the woods thinned to reveal another valley tucked into the Downs. “Give it a trial run, angel, spend a few months down here and see if it doesn’t make you feel better.”

Aziraphale smiled. “I think I’d like that very much.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those who are curious, the beloved Bentley is made of steel :) and Crowley swapped the cast-iron engine block out to make it 100% fae-safe.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What does (and doesn't) go unspoken.

**460 B.C.**

Crawly was in Babylon on orders to create a few faerie circles, to coax humans into crossing over. It didn’t feel sporting to trick them into a life of servitude and/or torture and/or being the main meal for an ogre, so instead he was lounging, drinking his weight in wine on the sun-baked balcony of the ziggurat. A spectacular and sprawling terraced compound, it was built in seven levels, each smaller than the one below it until one reached the uppermost level of the temple. There was to be a marriage rite between the god Marduk and his shining consort tonight; it would take place on the shrine at the zenith, a sacred celebration to mark the new year. Crawly wanted to see this so-called _god._

“-I must see to the shrine before-”

“No one is to see the shrine, priest.”

“-I’m afraid I must insist-”

Crawly managed not to spill his wine by sheer force of will, uncoiling himself from the cushions at the sound of that voice speaking stilted Assyrian. He tilted his head up and grinned at the sight of white linen robes on the level above him. Crawly abandoned his spot to take the narrow stone steps two at a time where he found Aziraphale pacing anxiously at the edge of the pavilion, shooting furtive looks to the guard who barred his path. Crawly had missed the beginning and the end of the argument, but it had apparently gone poorly.

“With that piss-poor attempt at a Babylonian dialect, no wonder they won’t let you up.”

“Crawly.” Aziraphale turned to face him and Crawly raised a brow in greeting, averting his yellow eyes from the curious gazes of nosy humans milling around the pavilion, waiting for the sun to set and the show to start. “Why are _you_ here?”

Crawly scowled. “It’s open to the public, angel.” He wasn’t banned from the Babylonian ziggurat (yet).

“That isn’t what I meant.”

The Unseelie was mollified by the flash of regret in blue eyes and said, “Here for the big wedding,” Crawly decided there was no need to mention the faerie circles since he wasn’t actively luring anyone– not successfully, that is. “You too?”

Aziraphale cast a worried glance in the direction of the shrine. “In a manner of speaking.”

“Trying to peep on the bride?”

“What?” The Seelie prince stiffened, indignant, “Of course not! Don’t be crass.”

Crawly grinned. “You haven’t heard me crass, angel.”

“Spare me,” Aziraphale muttered in response, distracted, “I really do need to get up there.”

Crawly’s gaze flicked from the anxious furrowing of the other fae’s brow to his fingers, twisting the tassels of his belt. “Alright, I’ll bite,” he snapped his fingers to catch Aziraphale’s eye, “Why don’t you just…” Crawly waved his hand, vaguely indicating magic.

“I’m trying not to draw attention to myself.”

“Ah,” hence the failed attempt to persuade the guard, “Weeeell, I’m not busy right now.”

Aziraphale blinked at him with big round eyes. “Really?”

Crawly shrugged, glancing away with a sniff. Aziraphale’s hopefulness clung to him, headier than wine. Exchanging favors with the Seelie prince was as close to intimate as Crawly had ever gotten to anyone. He craved the gratitude. “Give meeeeehmmm ten seconds.”

The Unseelie fae sauntered over to the guard and asked for his name. To his credit, the human narrowed his eyes to demand to know why. Crawly explained that he had heard of rumor of a great soldier, a favorite of Marduk, and figured he might be the one.

“I was told by Sirani that it was Shemesh I should be looking for,” Crawly said conversationally.

The guard’s eyes flashed in irritation, and he stood just a bit taller. “Shemesh is a drunk. I am Haldita, son of Bunene.”

 _Humans. Like picking low-hanging fruit_. “Much obliged, Haldita, son of Bunene,” Crawly’s voice dropped low, each syllable imbued with his power, his command, “ _Go to sleep_.” The name belonged to him now, and so did the guard’s will. Crawly led him stumbling from his post and set him down, slumped against glazed brick. By the time he turned around, Aziraphale was gone. The Unseelie snapped his fingers.

He reappeared at the top of the steps. “Angel?” Crawly eyed the shrine before him, its walls glazed in golden brick, engraved with verses worshipping the god Marduk. There was one arched entrance leading to the inner sanctum and Crawly stepped inside. It was lit by torches set in the walls and empty save for a raised platform in the middle of the room. On the platform was a golden couch and an iron cage. Aziraphale was standing by the cage. To Crawly’s surprise, there was a peri trapped inside – a young woman with green wings, shimmering golden skin and long black hair – and she was speaking soft and low to Aziraphale. Her shining face jerked up at the appearance of Crawly and she recoiled, the arch of her wings pressing into the iron bars. Realizing her mistake, she jerked forward at the contact and bit down the pained cry. 

Aziraphale turned to him, his expression drawn. “Be gone, foul serpent,” the prince commanded - a command which would have had more punch to it if Aziraphale wasn’t simultaneously trying to convey something very emphatic with his eyes.

Crawly ignored the hint. The peri was Seelie Fae – that was the point, he assumed, thus he and Aziraphale shouldn’t be familiar with one another – but she was still in a cage on top of a temple in the middle of Babylon. “So, _you’re_ going to be the shining bride?”

The peri glared at him and spoke to Aziraphale, but her voice carried. “I am not a bride.”

Crawly felt the arrival of the daeva before he saw him. A crack split the air – like thunder – filled the shrine and though it rattled his teeth, it was nothing more than a sound effect. The daeva was nearly seven feet tall, broad-shouldered and horned, wearing gold bands, his skin patterned with red rosettes. _So that's what passes for a god these days._ Humans were exceedingly gullible. He suspected the daeva had shown up because they’d triggered his wards which weeeere, ah, Crawly could see them now, translucent sigils carved in the curtains. 

His eyes were wild and red, and narrowed on Aziraphale. “Get out!”

“I will not,” Aziraphale replied stiffly, squaring his shoulders. “You possess a brass key to unlock this cage. Give it to me.” He seemed to be addressing the daeva but he looked past the red-eyed fae to Crawly, who wasn’t loving the look or what it implied he needed to do. _Pick a daeva's pocket? Not a problem. Anything for you, Aziraphale._ He didn't need both hands. Or a head. Grimacing, Crawly could’ve kicked himself for following the Seelie prince up here. _This is_ _what you get for trying to impress him, you damn fool._

The daeva swore at the Seelie prince, baring layers of teeth. “She is my wife.”

The peri _and_ Aziraphale protested to that overly optimistic declaration. Crawly threw back his head and laughed, which finally earned him a flick of aggravated acknowledgment from the daeva. “You know the punishment for _fraternizing,_ ” Crawly spit the word like a curse, slithering closer to the shadow fae, “Last time someone tried to defect, didn’t His Majesty feed them to the Black Dogs? Or did he skin them? I forget.”

A sharp intake a breath caught his attention and he glanced at Aziraphale, who looked stricken. Was it something he said? Offended his delicate sensibilities? Crawly wasn’t particularly inclined towards gore or torture either, but surely the Seelie prince could see where this was going… 

Those precious seconds he spent puzzling over Aziraphale’s displeasure were unwisely spent – and Crawly felt the shift of air as the daeva charged him. He side-stepped, head whipping towards the enraged Unseelie, but not quickly enough and with a violent, bodily thrust Crawly found himself slammed into the stone floor with claws sinking into his shoulders, through the meat and muscle to pin him to the ground.

 _Fuck!_ Letting out a pained gasp, Crawly shoved one hand against the blunt jaw of the daeva, thrashing to keep the other fae from ripping out of a piece of his throat. His other hand, he pushed between them in search of the leather pouch fastened around the waist. “Sssshe doesn’t want you,” Crawly snarled at the shadow, baring fangs as his fingers fished into the fabric and closed on cool brass. Crawly dislocated his own shoulder with a sickening _pop_ and twisted his hand out from under the daeva, sending the key skidding across the floor.

Crawly shifted, his body dissolving into its serpentine form and, with a practiced wriggle of skin and blood, weakening the daeva’s hold on his shoulders. The bones collapsed into compact muscle and vertebrae. The daeva’s claws slipped out of him and he let out an infuriated, raspy sound. Crawly pushed on, whispering ugly words, “Even if you did not keep her in a cage, ssshe would not want _you_.”

“ _SILENCE!”_

The roar rattled inside his skull, deafening and violent. Crawly retracted his head, dipping it beneath the daeva’s muscled arm and coiling tightly around his leg to anchor himself. “Ssshe is golden light and _you_ are _nothing_.”

“ _I WILL CUT OUT YOUR LYING TONGUE, SERPENT!”_

“If you could get to it, sshhhadow.” Crawly sank his fangs into the fleshy underside of one arm and the daeva shrieked. He squeezed harder, looping his muscled body around an arm, contorting himself into a figure eight and _crushingcrushingcrushing_ flesh and bone. He poured poisonous thoughts into the daeva’s mind, overrunning his defenses as he howled and tore at Crawly’s scales. _A shadow, an afterthought, dragging himself out of the festering cesspool of the Unseelie Court to play human- no, play god, in the human world. But a daeva was what he was, and no illusion would change the fact that – at his core – he was unwanted, unforgiven, unredeemable by any Seelie standard_. The daeva must have known this in his heart – or what passed for a heart – which was why he captured her in a prison she could not escape from. The only way that one of those golden bastards would ever be with the likes of him would be if he had no other choice.

Blood was hot and wet on his head. It filled his mouth, a cloying, metallic taste, and the daeva’s thrashing body went limp on top of him. Crawly saw the peri loom over him, and in her hands was an iron bar. Her fingers were blistered and bloody, and she still drove it through her captor’s head to kill him. She turned wild eyes on Crawly but before she could wrench the bar free and do him in, Aziraphale appeared at her side, pulling her away and cradling her hands in his. Crawly was half-listening to the sound of the prince promising that he would _take care of the other one_ , that she should _go home and see her wounds tended to_ , his head weaving unsteadily as he shook the blood out of his eyes. It was a tricky thing to do with no hands. Crawly unwound from the dead daeva and released a hiss of relief when the weight of the body was abruptly rolled off him. Aziraphale filled his line of sight, his face drawn and worried, fingertips stained red. 

Crawly swiveled his head around the room, and Aziraphale caught his movement. “She is gone,” he said quickly. A heartbeat of silence fell between them. Aziraphale bit his bottom lip, casting another anxious look over his serpentine form, “Crawly, I am so sorry…”

Crawly grunted and looked away. Black scales receded into pale skin and he regained human limbs with a satisfying crackle of his spine and shoulders. He realized he was laying on his back in daeva blood, tacky and lukewarm in the open air. Crawly ignored Aziraphale’s extended hand and stood up, grimacing as he flicked the blood off his robes and ran a shaking hand through his hair.

“Crawly…”

He stepped away from Aziraphale’s outstretched fingers and the anxiety in his voice, brushing off all evidence of the tussle with jerky movements that sent blood trickling down his chest, seeping into the black fabric of his robes. “Don’t.” _Don’t heal me._ _Don’t touch me._ The dislocation got sorted when he shifted back. His shoulders ached from the daeva’s efforts to pull off his arms, but what he really wanted was to go off and lick his wounds in peace.

“I said I would take care of you.” Aziraphale's mouth was set, determined. He closed the distance between them again and this time, Crawly did not step away.

“We both know that isn’t what you meant,” he said, dropping his hands to his sides in grudging consent.

“Actually, it was,” Aziraphale unfastened the fabric pinned at Crawly’s shoulder and let it fall between them, baring the meat of his bloodied shoulder. “She may have interpreted the words differently, but that has no bearing on my intent.” So, if he healed an Unseelie fae instead of bashing his head in, under the semantic umbrella of the phrase ‘take care of’ he did not see himself as having lied.

Crawly found this amusing, but not enough to distract his focus from the pain of having the Seelie fae dig the fabric out of his wound before he set about healing it. The initial discomfort was coupled with a warm relief that returned functionality to his arms – one at a time – and Crawly was grateful for it. “I’ll get rid of the body,” he muttered, casting a look to the dead fae between them.

Aziraphale refastened the bloodied fabric against Crawly’s shoulder. “What are you going to do with it?”

He nudged at the daeva’s arm with one foot. “Take it home, show it off, tell them it was me who offed him.”

Aziraphale sighed. “This wasn’t your fault.”

“No, it wasn’t,” he fixed the Seelie prince with a flat look – and the grief in his face, quivering behind wet eyes, was enough to strangle any resentment Crawly might have felt for being left out of the loop of this. “He’s a traitor. I can take credit for that. It'll look good.” Hastur and Liger were always making cracks about his being squeamish, so this ought to satisfy them for a bit.

“Ah yes,” Aziraphale replied faintly, “Fraternizing.”

He watched a wordless apology form in the Seelie fae’s eyes, in the bob of his throat, and cut in before Aziraphale opened his mouth. “You didn’t let her kill me,” Crawly said – abrupt and dismissive of whatever it was the other fae wanted to say. _We’re even_ , _except that we aren’t. I am so far indebted to you that we will never be even, never be equal, but that is not a conversation either of us needs to have._

“Of course I didn’t let her kill you,” Aziraphale replied, sounding almost – affronted, was it? The offense receded into worry and regret with his next breath, “I… I should have intervened...”

Crawly shrugged. He wasn’t broken up about the dead daeva. He had no loyalty to the Unseelie beyond what kept him in the king’s good graces. “You did intervene,” Marduk had stuffed the peri in an iron cage and would’ve bound her to him in a sham ceremony, “He got what he deserved.” That was some unseemly shit, and it was an unspoken agreement not to use iron against the opposition.

“Crawly.”

Aziraphale’s voice was soft and he gritted his teeth, not trusting himself to look the Seelie prince in the eye. He made his excuses to dump the body instead, hoisting the daeva over one shoulder, and he left Aziraphale standing in the temple.

Five hundred years passed before they met again. Crawly understood then what had driven him from Babylon, and he had learned to bear the weight of what he felt with a smirk and a lackadaisical swagger.

* * *

**2020**

The cottage was lovely.

Aziraphale marveled at its sweeping Victorian lines, decorative bannisters, and trimmed dormers. The kitchen was clean and bright, bathed in natural light from the windows. Through the kitchen one might step outside into the garden. Crowley’s garden. It was a breathtaking view, luscious and green and flowering well into autumn, humming with the presence of bumblebees, butterflies, hummingbirds and garter snakes. Within three months, Aziraphale had moved a quarter of his stock into Crowley’s study. Mahogany bookshelves filled the room, as did his beloved sofa and armchair – from the backroom of his shop. They tussled over the gramophone and Aziraphale eventually relented (to putting it in the living room instead, where it clashed spectacularly with Crowley’s sleek and black entertainment center). He decided to keep his shop in London, but he came to acknowledge it for what it had always been: an archive, a library to store his books and snuffboxes. 

“Aziraphale!”

Crowley’s voice overtook Mozart for a moment, and Aziraphale smiled, pressing the garlic clove with a spoon and both thumbs. “Kitchen, dear,” Aziraphale called back, relaxing as the clove gave way under his ministrations. Reaching for a knife, he made short work of chopping the cloves into delectable slivers, dragging the blade along the cutting board to push them aside with the shallot and the onions. Aziraphale enjoyed listening to the sound of Crowley stomping through the living room in his boots, kicking them off and throwing his coat over the sofa. He enjoyed the sound of his name, a warm caress of _knowing_ that made him feel seen. Crowley had always seen him but in the syllables of his given name, uttered within the protective sphere of this cottage, flaring along the ley lines beneath the foundations of this place, there was a power older than time itself. _I see you for all that you are and will ever be. I claim you. In this place that is ours. In our home._

“Brought you a treat.”

Visions of plum pudding danced in his head and Aziraphale turned towards the voice – but what Crowley brought for him was not food. Cradled in both arms, dripping muddied water on the floor, was a slab of wood. Crowley’s eyes gleamed bright in the warm kitchen light and he looked proud as anything, even in the face of Aziraphale’s furrowed brow and perplexed expression.

“Wood?”

“Mighty astute, angel. As always.”

Aziraphale pursed his lips at the sarcasm. He crossed the kitchen to Crowley, to investigate the wood more closely. The log was dark and aromatic, and he dipped his head to smell it. The scent was sweet, vanillic, a pinch of spice so difficult to place – and yet, he knew it as intimately as he knew the back of his own hand. Aziraphale’s fingers glided over the length of the log, and he felt the echo of this ancient thing, its source, its essence… “Heartwood,” he gasped in recognition, “The heartwood of an aquilaria. Crowley, where did you find this?”

It was the most precious wood in the mortal world, the only wood the Seelie Queen permitted Adam and Eve to take from the Garden of Eden. They called it aggor, agarwood, eagleswood, aloeswood, عود, 沉香, সাঁচি… used by the Egyptians to embalm their dead, by the samurai to scent their armor, in all manner of religious ceremonies, as incense, as perfume, or as a focus easing one's path to speak to gods, to commune with spirits, to hone their gifts of foresight and mindreading. Under Adam and Eve’s stewardship, the trees flourished but as demand grew over the centuries, they were nearly wiped from the earth, and now very few remained. There were none in Europe, of this Aziraphale was certain.

“Sri Lanka,” Crowley replied, “Brought you back a bowl of wattalapan too.”

Aziraphale would have brightened at the prospect of cardamom-spiced coconut custard if he was not so distracted by the wood. It was dead, of course, but the song resonated in the bark like a fond memory. It touched his heart. “Why did you bring me this?”

“For our altar.” Aziraphale blinked up at him. Crowley elaborated, “Tis the season and all that. We needed a yule log.”

“This is quite a log.” Any log would have done, really, and neither of them were particularly devoted to tradition.

“Well,” Crowley shrugged, as if the significance of it meant nothing at all, “It’s supposed to be from home. But if you don’t want it…”

Aziraphale covered Crowleys hands with his own. “It’s perfect," he smiled, "We'll burn it after dinner." 

Dinner was pleasant. A solstice ham, sun soup, root vegetables, and spiced crab apples. They shared two bottles of wine while the wassail simmered on the stove, and Aziraphale savored each bite of his cashew-topped wattalapan. “It is so…” Aziraphale’s fork twitched in the air, a contemplative gesture as he searched for the proper word: rich, sweet, coconut milk, delightful.

“Scrummy?”

Crowley was making fun of him. Aziraphale opened his eyes and glanced across the table to his friend who was sitting with both elbows on the table, running his thumb along the wet lip of his wineglass. He wasn’t smiling, but Aziraphale knew he was happy. “Yes.”

After dinner, Aziraphale knelt before the hearth in the living room, where he set the aggor wood upright on the stone. He decorated the log with pinecones, cranberries, flour, cinnamon sticks, gold ribbon, cuttings of juniper and holly, ringing the log in ivy trimmed from the garden. Feathers, too, taken from their wings – one black, one white – were left on the altar, and three candles.

“Would you do the honors, my dear?”

Crowley knelt next to him in front of the altar, their shoulders nearly touching, and snapped his fingers to ignite them. The candles – red, white, and green - hung in the air as if dangled from a string no one could see, hovering over the log and casting it a lovely orange light.

“Something is missing,” he mused.

“An old man in a red suit?” Crowley suggested wryly.

“No.” Aziraphale did not take the bait. Crowley enjoyed provoking Christmas celebrants by loudly proclaiming that there was no such thing as a Christmas tradition, unless that tradition was plagiarism of several other, more interesting faith practices. Aziraphale was of the opinion that any festival which invited self-reflection, generosity of spirit, love and hope in the dead of winter ought to be encouraged. Arguments over wine inevitably ensued – but this year, they had embarked upon a new tradition: building an altar together, to bless their home.

“What is it, then?”

“It’s the wood, I think.” Aziraphale’s affectionate gaze shifted from the log to his friend, “Let’s bring a yew offering from the garden.”

Rising from the altar, Aziraphale padded over to the foyer to slip on his shoes and his coat, before stepping outside. Crowley followed him. Collecting the wood was a ritual in and of itself – permission needed to be given, for a respectable altar. This could be tricky in the winter when most of the natural world was dormant. Aziraphale was fortunate enough to obtain what he required, and so he took one thick branch that had already begun to splinter under the weight of snow and ice. Aziraphale inclined his head with a prayer of thanks and returned to the cottage with the offering. It was set on the altar next to the aggor log, a lovely contrast of color and scent.

“It’s been a thousand years since I’ve done a proper ritual,” Crowley said finally, “Since when do you need two logs?”

Aziraphale settled into the warmth of the altar, letting the chill seep out of his clothes and skin into the floor. “It isn’t necessary,” he acknowledged softly, patting the floor next to him to beckon Crowley closer. The other fae obliged with a put-upon sigh. “I was only thinking that it ought to reflect our home. Yes, there is Eden…” Aziraphale caressed the aggor wood gently, “And the memory of where we have come from. But there is also this cottage. I am finding that it… _feels_ like home.” He wondered if it was strange to have developed such an attachment to a place he had lived in for a handful of months. London had been his address for three hundred years and yet… it was not _home_. 

“This feels like home to you?” Crowley’s voice sounded strange, trembling and quiet.

Aziraphale looked at him, struck by the golden cast of the candlelight on his face, in his eyes. He truly was the loveliest creature in the two realms. “Yes,” he replied with an implacable certainty, and smiled, “Doesn’t it?” _To you?_

“Yes.”

Aziraphale brightened and, feeling quite content and grateful for all that this year had brought him, he reached for Crowley’s hand and held it. Long fingers slipped between his own. With his unoccupied hand, Aziraphale reached for the wassail – poured into a teacup, not a chalice as in the old days, but well-loved – and raised it to his lips. He spoke a blessing in their faerie tongue over their home and health, over the village and its occupants, and all that the earth provided. He took a sip of the wassail and passed the cup to Crowley. “A blessing, my dear?”

“A toast,” Crowley suggested, “To the world. May the wheel keep turning.”

 _Oh, that is a good one._ “To the world.”

The wassail was finished, and the closing words were spoken, and together Aziraphale and Crowley took a candle each – the green and the red – and set the logs alight. The smoke cleared as if by magic as soon as formed, and the damp wood burned as easily as kindling, and they sat together in silence until the fire softened into warm embers. Aziraphale couldn’t help but feel lighter than he had in ages.

“Crowley?”

“Mm.”

Aziraphale turned away from the altar to see the other fae gazing at him. He had never felt so _seen_ as he did with Crowley – from the moment they met. It was more than recognition. It was the most beautiful, selfless devotion he had ever felt. “I love you.”

Crowley smiled at him, a brilliant flash of beautiful teeth, and he did not say a word. Aziraphale felt it all the same. In the cottage, in the garden, in the heartwood of a sacred tree, in coconut custard, in footsteps that accompanied him into the cold, and hands that clasped his in the warmth. And he felt in the slow sway of a body towards his and a kiss that tasted like apples and cinnamon. _I love you._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All the usual thank yous to everyone who read this story :) and to the GO Holiday Swap staff for organizing such a lovely event. I hope that you all had a happy lunar new year (if you celebrate!) and wish you only good things for 2020!


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